Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Local hiking expert says your beach days ain’t over yet!

Arcadia Wildlife Management Area (Credit: Cliff Vanover, Great Swamp Press)

Cliff Vanover has long been interested in the natural world. For decades, he has enjoyed hiking in and near , especially where he can observe evidence of glacial geology. As the proprietor of Great Swamp Press, based in southern RI, he writes and publishes maps and guides for walking and biking that are regarded as the definitive products of their kind for the areas covered. Despite the popularity of smart device apps, he said, often people want a hand-curated paper map.

One of his most popular, he said, is for the trails and footpaths of the Arcadia Wildlife Management Area. “My motivation to make the map was for myself so I would know where I was going. My first map was the Arcadia.” For traditional woodland hiking, he recommends Arcadia in central RI or Pachaug in nearby Connecticut, for which he also publishes a guide.

In summer before the weather cools, however, he said he avoids the woods due to bees and ticks, preferring coastal and beach hikes. Map of beach walk from Green Hill to East Matunuck in South Kingstown, RI. (Credit: Cliff Vanover, Great Swamp Press)

Vanover made a custom map for Motif readers for a short 4- to 5-mile hike in South Kingstown. “This is fun and takes a little carpooling,” he said. “This is at least a two-person hike,” so you first station one car at East Matunuck where the walk ends and drive another car to Green Hill Beach where the walk begins. “You start walking east on the beach,” he said. “Then you get onto Moonstone Beach, which is spectacular, but they want you to stay as close to the water as possible because by then the [endangered] plovers are gone but you really should not explore the coastal ponds there, you should just stay on the beach. And then you go to South Kingstown Town Beach and you have to get out there, you get onto the roads, and you go through Matunuck and then you end up at at East Matunuck State Beach. And there you are.” Cliff Walk and Bellevue Avenue (Credit: Cliff Vanover, Great Swamp Press)

He has several different publications for Aquidneck Island, including for Cliff Walk and Bellevue Avenue, for Newport Harbor Walk, for The Point: Map and Guide to Colonial and Early American Houses, and for Biking Aquidneck Island and Guide to Coastal Access. “As for Newport, if they wanted to do the Cliff Walk as a loop hike, they can start on Memorial Boulevard and Bellevue Ave, walk to the east toward First Beach and then get onto the trail, walk south and walk to the end down at Bailey’s Beach, and then walk back on Spring Street or Bellevue back to their car. That’s an eight-mile hike. And you can’t beat that for ocean landscapes.”

Other publications are for Carolina and Burlingame and for Bicycling Roads in South County.

At the high end of difficulty, Vanover cited the “North-South Trail that goes from the Blue Shutters Beach in Charlestown to the Massachusetts border at buck Hill. It’s 75 miles. It’s quite a trail. But you can’t camp on it, there’s no place, so really pretty much have to do it in pieces.” His guide for that, unfortunately, is out of print although he is working on a forthcoming second edition.

Vanover recommended MeetUp.com for anyone interested in exploring RI with a group, especially the Rhode Island Hiking Club and the Narragansett Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club. While the Hiking Club describes itself as offering “rather challenging hikes often through rough terrain,” their activities include “a variety of hikes from the beginner to the more experienced” and are rated on a scale of difficulty. Vanover said, “They have hikes for people who are getting into it or back into hiking,” usually “hikes more in the range of 5 to 8 miles.” He specifically noted their Wolf Hill Trail Hikes, which they describe as “Level 2 Moderate Difficulty” running “4 miles more or less” lasting “about two hours.”

Great Swamp Press publications are available for mail order directly on the web at GreatSwampPress.com and are stocked by retailers including the Map Center in Pawtucket, Ure Outfitters in Hope Valley, and REI in Cranston. Vanover recommends telephoning retailers in advance to confirm the guide wanted is in stock.

On the Ball and Off the Wall: Tokyo Olympics — Down and Dirty (and Deadly?)

This column is for non-sports fans who would like some enlightenment and hopefully humor beyond being sports fanatics.

Anybody want to buy 160,000 condoms, cheap?

If so, contact the International Olympics Committee in Tokyo, where they plan to hand out that stockpile of rubbers to the 11,000 athletes who will be competing in these audience-free events because they would probably like to get them off their hands ASAP. (That sound you hear is Olympic Games founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin spinning in his grave like an industrial lathe.)

Since 1988 at the Games in Seoul, the IOC has been handing out condoms to Olympic athletes by the pantload. This was in recognition of the fact that when you put thousands of athletes, most in the prime of their young lives and fitter than any fiddle you’ll ever hear, into the confines of the Olympic Village sites, primal urges are going to hit them like a tsunami.

How profoundly does this intensity, desire and hot blood affect these sports people? Former U.S. Women’s National Team soccer goaltender and two-time Olympic gold medalist Hope Solo (great name, eh?) told the New York Post, “There’s a lot of sex going on. I’ve seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between the buildings, people are getting down and dirty.”

Never mind the number who have some sense of discretion, dignity and couth who are going at it behind closed doors in their Village apartments.And like the sporting events, we are sure performance does indeed matter.

But here’s the hummer in Tokyo. The IOC plans to hand out the condoms after the Games end so there’s no appearance of encouraging fraternizing during a pandemic. The IOC further explains that this show of STD stifling and pregnancy prevention largesse will be used by the athletes to spread awareness of HIV and AIDS when they return home. Oh, right.

This kind of idiocy is just part of the twisted thinking that is surrounding the bedeviled Tokyo Games. While imagining another victory via the Trojans, the IOC is showing how desperate it is to avoid having a real discussion about the coronavirus. The virus is spiking in Japan right now, and what better way to show fear of a mass outbreak than to slap together athletes side-by-each in their residences and on their field, court, pool or whatever then push ahead as though the reality of the virus is nonexistent. Right now only 22% of the Japanese public support their holding of the Games (versus 52% of Americans surveyed). Scaredy cats.

To suggest that daily COVID tests of the athletes will absolutely, positively guarantee no one will come down with the disease is nonsense. If five New York Yankees can test positive for it (as they did recently) despite all of America’s National Pastime’s protective measures, please don’t suggest the shot putters from Poland or table tennis players from China are immune once they hit the ground in Tokyo.

So while the IOC stubbornly soldiers on, blind to a frightening disease but eyes wide open as to whose what is where when and how in the Olympic Villages, “deadly” becomes added to that down and dirty recipe for how the Games should play out.

But it is much more fun to find humor in the sexual side than COVID-19.

If I were smarter, I would have checked the stocks of the top producers of condoms everywhere and anywhere once the athletes and public found out about the post facto distribution of condoms. Surely no problem for the athletes to sneak these into their luggage underneath their all-purpose, logo-shouting track suits.

One remembers growing up in an American sports culture where, once you were old enough, you were told you should absolutely never, ever have sex the night before a game, lest you end up the next day a shivering piece of worthless, talentless crap who betrayed your teammates for a quickie. They don’t keep statistics for it, but since 1988, it would have been fun to ask all the Olympic medalists whether or not they had gotten some on the eve of their finals event.

If they had an over/under bet on that stat, I’ll take the “over” every day of the week. One hundred and sixty thousand condoms can’t be wrong.

On the Ball and Off the Wall: The bar exam

My guess is sports bars took it in the teeth with the COVID restrictions, but luckily most of the restraints on businesses were softened at a good time for sports bars. The NHL and NBA were just entering their postseason playoffs, the season was getting rolling and soccer’s Euro championship was kicking off. And international soccer is starting to take a foothold in the TV market, although you have to search out which places are airing the matches.

Which brings us to what constitutes a “sports bar.” An array of giant TVs does not immediately qualify your pub as a sports bar. But a tavern with customers wearing their ball caps on backwards and highlighting the “prole strap” across their foreheads (you suss that description out), and/or replica jerseys of their favorite team, and screaming at the TV are defining features of a hardcore jock establishment. And when the NFL season rolls around, bonus points are awarded for getting as many different games on various TVs, easily identifiable by all the guys with Patriots, N.Y. Giants, N.Y. Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys parked in from of specific broadcasts. (Since Tom Brady arrived in Tampa Bay during the lockdowns, don’t be surprised to see the Buccaneers have their own special set this fall.)

There are other telltale signs that this is where the diehard fans hang out: the photos on the walls. Snapshots of Bobby Orr flying through the air as he scored the game winner against the St. Louis Blues to win the Stanley Cup for the Boston Bruins is the equivalent of pictures of Jesus and President Kennedy on the walls of a strongly religious Catholic family, no shortage of which reside in Rhode Island.

Personal favorites of this writer are the Red Sox catcher and captain Jason Varitek giving the Yankees’ A-hole Rodriguez a face wash with his catcher’s mitt; any picture of Ted Williams; and the Celtics’ Big Three of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish walking down the court together. Other winners are the field at Fenway Park at night; boxer and local wild man Vinny Paz; PC hoops legends Jimmy Walker and Billy Donovan; and what the hell, PC coach Rick Pitino shouting from the sidelines.

There are other rules of the sports bar road, especially regarding drinks. Acceptable choices are shots, beer (lots of), or Captain and Cokes. Nothing too healthy, unless it is a Bloody Mary and you are trying to survive a heavy-duty hangover.

Finally, many down-and-dirty sports bars are not going to win any interior design awards. But part of the joy experienced by the customers is the smell of old beer, dark wooden walls and fellow travelers who you don’t know but are still high-fiving when the hometown boys do something miraculous. So the slicker the joint looks, it’s buyer beware. And know that when you start swearing like a sailor, and the crowd appears offended, you’re probably in the wrong place.

Get the Ball Rolling: Pinball comes to Pawtucket This could be the start of a sitcom: two friends, living together, decide to pick up pinball as a hobby, and bring along another friend for the ride. The next thing they know? They’re opening Electromagnetic Pinball in Pawtucket. Michael Pare, Emily Rose and Joe Paquin have come together to bring not only their own collection to the public, but a love of pinball, gaming and community.

The housemates started collecting about five years ago with one single pinball machine, and the hobby continued to grow. Emily Rose says, “We didn’t have couches, we had maybe 20 or 25 pinball tables, some stored underneath each other. It was like [stacking] cartridge games; even though they’re pinball tables, we were putting one under another and moving them when we needed them.”

Rose has always had a love for games, but found a particular love for pinball and the pinball community. She said, “We’ve met a lot of friends, been to events, there’s just been a resurgence in pinball. It’s such a good response, we just keep going.”

Each of the three business partners have their own talents when it comes to the business, and through Joe, they spent a lot of time connecting with the community. They’re running a summer camp this summer, and plan on having group homes come in. Rose says, “We’re also working with a charity called Project Pinball that puts machines in hospitals and Ronald McDonald houses.”

Rose talks about a return to pinball as a “classic” style game. She said, “The gaming environment is kind of dying, we’re trying to go against that.” Rose stresses the need to have players be in the moment and focused on what’s happening in the game. There are two problems she’s identified in the gaming world — first and foremost, an issue with most games being digital. She says of the pinball tables, “We like it because it’s real, each pinball table is its own thing. Virtual? It’s not the same without the ball.” Second, she mentions how people forget the art of the games and how to play them because they’re focused on the prize. She says, “People don’t appreciate games when they focus on the prize or the money; they miss out on the experience of the game.” Because of that, the arcade does have prizes, but you can buy them if you want. The experience is about the game itself. She says: “Play games for the sake of playing games, it’s fun!”

Rose reflects on her past as she looks to the future of the business she helped build. “We’re trying to put in as much into the gaming community as we got out.”

Electromagnetic Pinball (881 Main St, Pawtucket) will hold a free grand opening party on July 2 from 2-5 pm (suggested donation: $10). Play pinball, visit their neighbor, Lighthouse Skatepark, and have an early dinner at Smoke and Squeal BBQ, which also is in the building. For more info, go to fb.com/ElectroMagneticPinball

Pura Vida: Get on board, surf, skate or skim

Last summer saw a huge surge of popularity in all kinds of surfing and skim boarding camps, as well as every possible form of outdoor activity. Even at the height of the pandemic, water-based sports went on unrestricted. As people’s pandemic fears ease, there will be an even bigger increase in outdoor activities, especially on the ocean.

Expect to see a continuation of the current biking, running, kayak and paddleboard madness that has driven those industries to record profits. We can expect another year of product shortage in the outdoor sporting goods industry. Consumer demands exceed the inventory of manufacturers by a mile.

Photo courtesy of Peter Pan A good indicator of how big this summer will be is how the season went at Yawgoo Valley Ski Area this winter. Aided by the extra good snow making and natural snowfall, the ski area had its biggest season of all time. Season passes, private and group lessons and daily day passes were sold out. Ski and snowboard shops that suffered during the past few years recorded not only a huge increase in retail sales, but also in rental packages.

Most state and town beaches are open and charging both parking and admission fees. Many of the town beaches are holding to the patterns of last summer, limiting non-resident parking and passes. State beaches have changed last season’s rules and regulations, and opened up both parking and beach admission capacity so the public can finally enjoy the shore.

Photo courtesy of Jamie Kelley

For area surfers, the most popular beach in not only Rhode Island, but the entire northeast, is still the Narragansett Town Beach. Blessed with shallow sand bars and a versatile swell magnet, it remains the surfing mecca of . Surf camps run by Narragansett Surf and Skate and the Town of South Kingstown Recreation Department at both the Narragansett Town Beach and Matunuck Point are still available. Some weeks are already full. Photo courtesy of Peter Pan

A big item this summer is the skim boarding camps at the South Kingstown Town Beach, which is one of the very few ideal skim boarding beaches in the northeast. Pro skimmer Drew Plourde runs the camp, which has expanded to three weeks this summer. Campers ride only the best foamie skim boards made during the sessions. Photo by Andrew Fisher

Rhode Island’s premier skateboard park, Old Mountain Field, is again offering nine weeks of skateboarding camp, led by top area skaters Christian Clark and Hunter Barbosa. This setting offers probably the best combination of ramps, obstacles and riding surfaces in the New England area.

Almost all of the kayak, paddle board, boat, and surfboard rental businesses anticipate continuing the reservation system the pandemic required, so don’t expect to rent any outdoor product without calling first.

All I can hope for now is that everyone gets vaccinated and students go back to school in the fall. Then I can enjoy an uncrowded line-up for a change, instead of fighting for waves at Point Judith.

Not Just Fun, but Super Fun: Fool yourself into getting a little exercise, you slacker

Attention all cool people – it’s time for you to grab your closest friends and get ready for the Super Fun Activities Club (SFAC). No, seriously. The SFAC is an adult (read: 21+) sports league that features pretty much every sport you can imagine, from flag football to cornhole to pickleball, which unfortunately does not involve pickles, but still seems like a ton of fun. It’s like all of those sports that your parents signed you up for when you were a kid – only this time you’re in control and you not only get to decide which sport to sign up for, you can make your own team.

Yep, that’s right. No more being picked last. Although the SFAC website warns of it being an incredibly rare possibility for friends to get separated, you can form a team with your friends and have the most fun ever – all with people you know. You also can go lone wolf. If you sign up on your own, the SFAC will place you on a team without you having to get people you know involved. They also allow you to substitute for teams that may be down a player for free – one time. Check their website for more.

The main focus of the Super Fun Activities Club is fun. Right, I know, duh, but let’s focus on this. Remember how I mentioned that it’s similar to choosing sports as a kid? Not all of us (me) had a wonderful time with sports, and the SFAC makes them accessible for everybody with a focus on having a good time. Their website doesn’t even mention that it’s exercise, just that your goal, your mission, is to get some fun into your life.

Jeremy Dubois of SFAC says, “SFAC is not sports leagues. We are a social community that also does sports/activities. While that sounds like a subtle difference, it’s tremendously important. We are MUCH more about enhancing your life through social connection, combined with physical activity. It’s about being connected and being a part of something. We honestly don’t care a whole heck of a lot about the sports. We’re about the people.”

Summer leagues for the following sports will run in July and August: softball, flag football, dodgeball, volleyball, yogeyball, pickleball, soccer and kickball. These sports are registering now. SFAC is following protocols for COVID-19 as outlined by the state, but the summer leagues are primarily outdoors and most club members are vaccinated.

According to Dubois, if you’re on the fence he says: “The most common phrase I hear is ‘I wish I joined this sooner. I’ve known about this for forever, and I was too afraid to show up not knowing anyone. Now I have tons of friends and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long.’ So, take the leap! Stop just watching people having fun. Join in! It will change your life. It’s changed mine!”

You heard it here, get to it!

For more info, superfunactivitiesclub.com or follow them @superfunactivitiesclub

On the Ball and Off the Wall

This column is for non-sports fans who would like some enlightenment and hopefully humor beyond being sports fanatics.

Soul on Ice This is definitely the time of year for casual sports fans to watch their frantic friends start bleeding from the ears for lack of real excitement in Jockworld.

Any time the highlights and headlines for the Sweaty Sciences lead with coverage of the NFL draft and announcement of the upcoming football schedule, delivered by reporters and commentators screaming like they are covering the Hindenburg disaster, you know they are serving up some pretty thin gruel. What makes these phony dramatics even more insulting/ridiculous/nauseating (choose one or all of the above) are the “mock drafts” that are conducted every day three weeks ahead of time. This is when self- (or network) anointed football “gurus” take a stab at predicting who will be drafted and in what order. It’s pitched like the jewels in the crown of prognostication, provided you realize the diamonds of wisdom being offered turn out to be rhinestones. You’d have as much luck making these picks as a blind man playing darts.

And the only reason any person with a life should care even one whit about the upcoming schedule is to find out the date Tom Brady and the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be facing the atrocious Cam Newton and the New England Patriots. Head coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft would be wise to fake a positive test for COVID-19 that week and watch the game on TV safe at home.

Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox and Celtics might as well be playing on fields and courts in the dark. Despite a roaring start, the Bosox are back to looking like the walking disappointment they are bound to be over the course the season. With a starting pitching staff and bullpen that should be hurling (an apt Aussie word for vomiting, a.k.a. Technicolor yawn, parking the tiger, laughing at the ground, etc.) in Worcester, expect little and they will definitely oblige you. If only Boston could get players like Mookie Betts and Andrew Benitendi.

The NBA, meanwhile, is absolutely unwatchable, as it consists only of three-pointers and slam dunks scored by physical freaks. Add to it the fact that everyone travels and palms the ball so blatantly it would make a CYO coach of days gone by pass out. To wit, the traditional small ball-handling point guard in the NBA now averages out at 6’5”+. Back in the day, when this writer played hoops in high school, he was the tallest player on his team at 6’4”, playing against other schools having the same normal human beings.

But wait, and cue up the Mighty Mouse theme song (“Here I come to save the day…” in case you were locked in the attic as a child). The National Hockey League undergoes a metamorphosis every year when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin, teams now playing with a speed, heart and soul that is a full leap above the tiresome regular season games. The hitting is ferocious, skating and technical skills are on gleaming display, the goalies perform body-bending Cirque de Soleil saves, and its end-to-end action makes you nearly go blind trying to follow the puck. Even if you had given up on pro hockey after they shamed the Original Six by putting teams in such well-known snowy winter enclaves as Tampa Bay and Las Vegas (or Miami and Phoenix, ouch) turn on what every year turns out to be an annual entirely new — and eminently sensational — take on hockey. With all due respect to female athletes, the Stanley Cup is when you separate the men from the boys, along with the occasional shoulder from its socket and teeth from the gums. You wonder how these guys can even survive day-to-day.

So while COVID-limited attendance at Red Sox and Celtics games may hide the possible embarrassment of having fans with bags over their heads, the guttural roar of a full arena of hockey fans when an opposition player gets smoked into the boards or flipped over at center ice is badly missed and quite noticeable by its absence. Just don’t tell that to the players who still play like their hair is on fire.

On the Ball and Off the Wall: Noise Pollution: The most annoying illusion in sports

This column is for non-sports fans who would like some enlightenment and hopefully humor beyond being sports fanatics.

Vuvuzelas!

No, that doesn’t mean go eff yourself in Afrikaans. But it might as well convey that message.

At the 2010 soccer World Cup finals in South Africa, vuvuzelas nearly eclipsed the play on the field. They are a traditional long-stemmed horn instrument with some historic legit in the country. If you haven’t heard children blowing their little brains out into plastic trombones and trumpets with cheek- splitting fervor for two hours straight, you haven’t experienced the vuvuzelas in full cry. By that time, if you have any sense, you’d already have the Glock at your temple and a good-bye note on the kitchen table.

The roar of the vuvuzelas at the games in South Africa overwhelmed both the radio and TV broadcasts. This was not appreciated by the many big-money sponsors of the event. But due to their indigenous South African tribal legacy, the sanctioned blare went on, every game, every hour and every minute, with soccer officials and media having to nod to the country’s honored heritage … even if it meant covering their ears and shrieking. (Note: Vuvuzelas are now banned by nearly every stadium in the world.)

Flash forward 10 years, and our new COVID-19 techno version of faux crowd noise is now being electronically controlled and fed into TV coverage of games with no one in the stands. Now this is very clever. But like most clever things, it is absolutely game-changing, or, and that’s a big or, a monumentally annoying and stupid party trick.

What happens is that the techno geek in the control room feeds recorded sounds into the play-by-play, trying to give the illusion of real people reacting in the vacant stands. It’s actually done quite well, until you see either vacant seats or cutouts of people occupying the seats. Hey, I’m stupid, but not quite that stupid.

Real is real. Nothing can successfully imitate the roar of the Fenway crowd when Big Papi Ortiz stepped to the plate against the Yankees in extra innings. Or when in past years Knicks fans essentially invented the “Dee-FENSE!” chant. Or when the end zone fans at Gillette Stadium scream loud enough when another team is first and goal to completely disrupt the opponent’s snap count. And studies have shown that the home crowd can influence referees’ calls. And there is no guessing involved that at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium, the full-throated sound of 60,000 people singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in unison inspires their club while intimidating the opposition. That bitching aside, the worst part of this manufactured noise is that the way the networks have set up their electro-tech is that it overpowers the commentary and play-by-play. the various crowd noises, fake as they are, make it near impossible to hear what is being said by the announcers. That may not be a bad thing, but it becomes extremely irritating over the course of a two-hour-plus broadcast. Yes, commentary may be superfluous because if you’re a real sports fan you don’t need some dickhead in a blazer telling you what your eyes are already seeing. But it does bring on a vuvuzela distraction when you were eager to hear about how Player X is facing criminal domestic abuse charges that may have gone unnoticed by the casual observer.

So let us please get back to muted crowd noise, and there is a special place in hell for those announcers who try to convince you there are actual fans in the stands who can make more noise than someone opening a packet of potato chips. To paraphrase a now popular phrase, “Shut up and play.”

On the Ball and Off the Wall: The name game

This column is for non-sports fans who would like some enlightenment and hopefully humor beyond being sports fanatics.

Years ago, OTB&OTW did a name game of the weirdest names in college basketball. Thanks to the COVID pandemic, the national magazines that supplied those candidates are virtually nonexistent, so we will try our best to keep up, extending into professional soccer leagues, where insanity and wit still prevail.

The local winner was and still remains the Providence College basketball star, God Shammgod. You just can’t make that up, but evidently his mother, right after giving birth and highly sedated, thought otherwise. And URI’s current hoopster Fatts Russell deserves a nod, but nicknames just don’t count.

But through the course of the years, there have been some eternal honorees. To wit, Napoleon Lightning and Elvis Old Bull among the dignitaries.

And as a sidebar, a good friend of ours in California who played minor league ball in the Dodgers’ organization, had a dazzling high school teammate who changed his name to Marvel Champion, and from all accounts lived up to his personal ambitions, despite smoking perhaps a bit too much SoCal weed off the diamond.

But no one can touch the Mapp brothers duo who went to the University of Virginia to play hoops. They were — wait for it — Majestic Mapp, and his brother, Scientific Mapp. Now those parents are some folks you would want to invite to a dinner party.

So as enjoyable as those players are, we’ll switch over to international soccer. We have always had a soft spot in our heart for the much-travelled Nacho Navas. But he must give way to this year’s winner, Marvelous Nakamba, of England’s Premier League team, Aston Villa. Say all you want about him playing a horrible game, but that “Marvelous” sets you back a bit. Finally, speaking of English soccer, the fans are known for their non-stop chants during a game, and outlandish team “anthems.” As a fan of London’s West Ham United, we were shocked that their team song was “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” not exactly designed to intimidate rivals in anybody’s book.

But the best chant we ever heard was by the fans of Everton, one of Liverpool’s two top teams. It was directed to a Korean player who was one of their favorites — believe it or not — but carrying the weight of his country’s taste for eating dogs. (Full disclosure – We have eaten dog in Indonesia at a friend’s house. Think of carrying your wallet in your back pocket all day in 100 degree heat and humidity, then taking it out and chomping down on a piece of it. You get the idea. And there is a widely held belief that black dogs taste much better than white dogs. So if you are ever driving through villages in Southeast Asia and see dogs milling about, remember they are not cute house pets, rather future dinners.)

But we digress. The chant for Everton’s Korean star went as such:

He shoots!

He scores!

He eats a labrador!

Tasteful in so many ways, n’est-ce pas?

Sleep tight, Majestic and Scientific. We love you.

The Honeys Sweep the Season

For 11 years, the Providence Home Season Championship trophy has eluded the Old Money Honeys. A different tale was told this year as the Honeys went undefeated and topped last year’s champs, the Sakonnet River Roller Rats, 226-142.

PRD’s alumni were in attendance to watch the showdown, in which the lead score changed four times in the first half between the two teams. The Rats’ #1216 Jane Austentatious capitalized with a 20-point jam, assisted by high-end blocking from #1230 Prince Sparklefists, #1688 Mistress Mischief, and #917 La Bibliowrecka. Twice the Rats would lose their lead after power starts to the Honey with #83 Delta Bravo picking up 12 points in one of the jams.

The halftime originally started with a tie of 88-88, but was later corrected by officials 88-86, giving the Honeys the lead. Honeys’ #013 Monswoon started the second half with a 20-point jam that was later matched by Honey’s co-captain #1860 Oakley. Rats’ #078 Pez DispenseHer fired back a 14-point jam, but the Rats couldn’t recapture the lead against the Honeys’ strong defense including #40 Milla Low Life, #206 Cindy Lou Screw, and #2350 Freak’n Awesome.

Earlier in the night, The Mob Squad took on the visiting team, Central Jersey Roller Vixens. The Mob opened strong with #014 Can’t Catch-A-Torie scoring 20 points in the second jam. Aiding in the big gains were #138 Scarlette O’Scare-A and #12 Varla Gunz. Vixens never gave up with a huge rotating lineup of jammers that included #0 Higgs Bosom, #18 Misty Meanor, #19 Ivanna Exposya, #549 Principal Rooney, and #92 Huntress. Defensively, the Mob held the lead from the start, aided by blockers #187 Bootiful Banshee, #218 Mini Meat, #247 Hot Sauce, and #718 Black’nBlue Dahlia. Mob closed the year out with a 239-130 win.

The derby year might be over, but PRD will be making one final appearance. You can watch a derby demo and interact with the league at Oktoberfest in Wakefield on Saturday, October 5. If you are interested in joining the league as a skater, official, volunteer or announcer, you can reach out to PRD through social media or going to ProvidenceRollerDerby.com